


Endgame

by Legendaerie



Series: All the Rest is Rust and Stardust [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubble, Gen, Post Prototyping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-25
Updated: 2012-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-05 06:31:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was neither time nor space, just endless, effortless flight that had all the thrill of being paralyzed.  </p><p>Once, she had spoken - barked - in an effort to convince herself that she still existed.  She didn't try it twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endgame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [R_Vienna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Vienna/gifts).



> Prompt via (yournamewasangie) from tumblr as part of Sadstuck Saturday.

**Endgame.** (n) _The final stage of a game such as chess or bridge, when few pieces or cards remain._

_—-_

_  
_

She was alone, stark white against the black oblivion that lay between universes (if nothing could be considered anything at all), a realm that was as black as her hate.

 

Her nose, sharpened by a canine whose powers she shared, led her onwards.  No breeze ruffled her fur, no light ever pierced the endless drowning dark through which she swam.

 

The beat of her wings were seldom and soundless.  Her eyes told her nothing about her surroundings.

 

She was utterly alone.

 

—

 

There was neither time nor space, just endless, effortless flight that had all the thrill of being paralyzed.  Once, she had spoken - barked - in an effort to convince herself that she still existed.

 

The sound was faint as it traveled endlessly in all directions, never bouncing back to greet her.

 

She didn’t try it again.

 

—

 

Once or twice, she saw strange, floating orbs, with surfaces reflecting lives of strange characters she had never seen before.  More often, though, she found these fragile worlds destroyed - floating in nothing with the scent of green lighting fresh on the edges.

 

She glanced up at one, deliberately adjusting her course to skim by it and stare down inside. Someone, like a firefly, orange and blue winged, was rolling in something white below.  Little whispers of laughter and the sweet scent of joy made bitter and stale by death reached her ears.

 

The avenging monarch hovered around the bubble briefly, watching the memories of the dreaming dead mingle, then continued on.

 

—

 

More and more fragments of dream bubbles were strewn about the oblivion around her, evident of Jack’s growing fury.  She’d been chasing him for what seemed like longer than time itself, but her deprived senses had no real judge of duration.

 

Once, someone had reached out to her from the shreds of memory, hooded in deep blue and with a broken smile.

 

She had reached back, brushing her hand against his grey fingers, then he had vanished with a pulse of energy like a dying cough.

 

The monarch held her fingers up to her nose, then clenched her fist and redoubled her speed.

 

—

 

At last, she’d caught up with him - she could see him through the distorted skin of the dream bubble, and the rainbow of fluids around him.  She burst through the wall of the bubble, drawing the sword from her stomach and—

 

She stopped.

 

He stood before her on a blood spattered battlefield, surrounded by the slaughtered revolutionary armies of Prospit and Derse.

 

Her sword was buried in his chest before he even had time to turn around.

 

Jerking it out with a flick of her wrist, so the blood freckled the ground artfully, she caught his eyes.

 

It wasn’t Jack.

 

It was the Wayward Vagabond.

 

Too late, she realized her mistake and she fell to her knees to grasp him.  But the bubble burst, and she was left alone in the void.

 

She sniffled, snarled as she rubbed a couple tears off her cheek, then headed deeper into oblivion.

 

—-

 

She knew that she couldn’t catch Jack.  They were equally matched, and he had a head start.

 

All she could do was chase him endlessly, caught in a vicious, empty stalemate, and wait desperately for him to make a mistake.

 

One that he never would.

 

This was her fate, just as it had been the fates of the previous monarchs of Prospit and Derse to war eternally.

 

It was just as hollow, this hunting.  Just as empty.  This deep in, there weren’t even dream bubbles anymore.  There wasn’t sight or sound or touch.

 

It felt like waiting to die.

 

But still, she flew on.


End file.
